Oil Analysis can identify performance or condition of machines and equipment from determining degree of wear (normal or abnormal), degree of oil degradation and degree of oil contamination.

The goal of oil analysis program is, help to increase reliability and availability of machines and equipment while minimizing maintenance budget and cost which associated with lubrication failure mode, labor, downtime etc.

A well-designed routine oil analysis testing and result must encompass three categories:

Wear Condition (Wear Metal Debris);

Wear debris analysis relate to health of machine

Oil Condition (Fluid Properties);

Viscosity

Oxidation , Nitration

Total Acid Number (TAN)

Total Base Number (TBN) etc.

Contamination (Fluid Contamination);

Water

Dirt & Dust

Fuel

Coolant

Wrong oil

Particle contamination

etc.

Recommendation and Interpretation will be done by considering from the three categories, machine in service hours, oil in service hours, and related operating information, such as oil change/make up, filter change etc.

The primary of alarm or alarm limit , is to filter (funnel) data so that the data end-users spend their time managing and correcting exceptional situations instead of perusing the data trying to find exceptions. The alarm serves as "trip-wire" to tell the analysts that a threshold has been passed and that the action is required. Some data parameters have only limits such as Wear Metal Debris (RDE,RFS ,TAN). A few data parameter employ lower limits like TBN ,flash point . Other parameters like viscosity use both upper and lower limits.

Oil Analysis has worldwide proven to be an effective monitoring tool to help increase reliability and availability, but unfortunately, different organizations or plants have achieved a variety degrees of success and economical benefits.

Briefly, effective and successful Oil Analysis Program requires an understand and drive the program, organized, sustained and improved efforts .